B.C. to try 'as hard as we can' to make new job training deal work (with video)

OTTAWA --- The B.C. government says it can hopefully save most of its job training programs for vulnerable people, but may have to make some other changes and cuts, as part of a new agreement-in-principle between the federal government and the provinces on job training.

The deal, reached with all provinces except Quebec and announced here Friday by Employment Minister Jason Kenney, includes a number of federal concessions intended to overcome vehement provincial opposition to Ottawa's proposed Canada Jobs Grant.

That will in turn allow the federal government to launch the CJG on April 1. It's an employer-driven training program that will ensure "we get better bang for the taxpayers' bucks and guaranteed jobs at the end of the training," Kenney said.

In return for the concessions, all participating provinces have agreed to administer the CJG program.

B.C. Jobs Minister Shirley Bond, who was one of the key provincial representatives in striking the deal, said she was pleased to see a compromise agreement with Ottawa but it is not without impact to provinces and territories.

B.C. currently gets $65 million a year out of federal labour market agreement funds, and will have to shift $9.7 million of that in the first year toward programs that fit the Canada Jobs Grant, she said. The B.C. impact will rise to $39 million by the end of a four-year phase-in of the program.

"I certainly anticipate holding on to a lot of programs, modifying them and there may be some we need to drop, but we get a chance to shape them under the Canada Jobs Grant category," said Bond.

"This is new, it is untested, and we're going to work as hard as we can to make this work."

The deal will allow B.C. to protect training programs for vulnerable workers, such as First Nations, which was a key demand of the province, said Bond.

"I do not want to imply there will not be some impacts," she said.

"The good news is we've seen them move flexibility on our ability to protect those programs, and that took a great deal of discussion."

Details of the agreement remain sketchy, but Kenney confirmed that Ottawa will still gradually take back $300 million of the estimated $3 billion a year Ottawa transfers to the provinces for job training.

The dispute is over the federal government's plan to fund the CJG by stripping $300 million from federal transfers to the provinces for job training.

However, the federal government has agreed to not force provinces to contribute their share of the $300 million - B.C.'s would be about $40 million annually - from the Labour Market Agreement (LMA) program.

The LMA funding is for helping people on the margins of the workforce - unemployed older Canadians, aboriginals, women, youth, and the handicapped - to develop skills, like basic literacy and life skills, to enter the job market.

The federal minister said provinces will now be able to find their share of the $300 million contribution from the Labour Market Development Agreement, a separate federal-provincial deal that transfers $2 billion annually to train unemployed workers eligible for Employment Insurance.

Kenney said some provinces don't use their entire LMDA funding, so training programs for EI-eligible residents won't necessarily be chopped.

Another concession the provinces forced out of Ottawa was a one-year review of the program in December 2015.

"The provinces and territories were very insistent that there be an evaluation of this program," said Bond. "That is something we were successful in achieving . . . that was critical to us. This is new, it is untested, and we wanted the opportunity to make changes and have the federal government committed to that."

Both the LMA and the LMDA were launched in 2008, when the Harper government - then keen to win support in Quebec - declared that provincial governments were better able to handle training.

The federal government, with the strong support of the construction industry, wants that $300 million to fund the federal grant program.

The CJG would provide up to $15,000 to train an individual, with two-thirds being funded by the federal government and the remaining $5,000 from the sponsoring employer, who will guarantee the trainee a job.

The federal government's final offer to the provinces and territories included a provision allowing smaller companies to make "in kind" contributions to cover their share. Future wages could be recognized as an employer contribution, Kenney said.

The Harper government has questioned the effectiveness of the province-run LMA programs, while provinces - citing both their own studies and a federal government analysis - argue that they are successful.

Kenney made the announcement at an annual gathering of conservative Canadians organized by Reform party founder Preston Manning.

He caused a stir while defending his support for the Conservative 2011 campaign promise to allow, once the budget is balanced in 2015, couples to split their incomes for tax purposes.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty recently pointed out that the promise is expensive (more than $2 billion annually) and won't help most Canadians.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Kenney, and a number of MPs back the idea.

Income-splitting, which would allow a high-income earner to transfer a portion of their earnings to a spouse in a lower tax bracket, would principally benefit wealthy Canadians with stay-at-home spouses.

"We need to recognize that according to the data, the single most important factor that leads to successful employment and economic opportunities for people is whether they come from a stable family," Kenney told the gathering.

"And we need to support moms and dads who make sacrifices for their kids."

He later told reporters that the measure is not about favouring single-income families with stay-at-home spouses, who are usually women. Instead, it is about tax fairness.

He said he wasn't declaring that families with two working parents, or single-parent families, are inherently unstable.

"There's all kinds of different families that are stable. We just believe in supporting families and the choices they make."

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B.C. to try 'as hard as we can' to make new job training deal work (with video)

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